Led Zeppelin-newly remastered

Mothership.The cynical side of me says why? mostly the same songs as Earlier days, latter days, so I have read. So why? a bigger tweak of the old EQ?. Kerching went the cash register.
Roll on the next tweak cd set. One for the must haves only methinks.

the song remains the same is really nicely mastered. i was bored by the performances when the original came out but i can hear now how fine they really are. not as good a performance as how the west was one but the sonics are even better i think. and its only "not as good" as other led zeppelin performances, it is still astounding rock and roll to these old ears. the 4 players are each quite brilliant. on to the other new mastering.

mothership sounded good to me at first but after reading Metralla here and numerous other folks at steve hoffman forums all pointing to the 80's as being straight transfers from the analog, i had to check it out.

i realized i had actually never tried them but because i never liked the 90's remasters (compared to my analog copies) i just assumed the 80's were worse - this based on prejudice from hating the 80's cd's i tried from other catalogs (miles davis is a good example). these tryouts are what kept me from buying a cd player until the 90's.

so, this morning i got an 80's copy of zep I at "turn it up" in brattleboro vt. sat down with mothership and after going back and forth a whole bunch came to the same conclusion as Metralla. these are better.

i eat my hat.
blech...

i think a good mastering/manufacturing job now would surpass these 80's transfers due to so much ground being gained in 16 bit since then. even a needle drop of a classic records zep might smoke the 80's cd if done properly. certainly the vinyl is way better.

if you can, compare momship to the 80's diament mastering like i did.try this: turn up a diament cut til plant is pretty loud. all will be well, i promise. now - swap it for mommaship and turn up that same song til plant is as loud as you just heard him on your 80's cd. i promise that your ears will hurt from the loudness/piercing quality of one instrument or another.

at low/careful volume the mom reveals a lot of detail and appears to have great soundstage. this can be seductive. but there is an artificiality to some of the tonal shadings and the imaging if you compare to the vinyl or the diament. it can sound really SUPER, but thats just what it is - there's a bit of super natural vs natural sonics being played out.

i love that (if it's not too loud) on an Air cd, or on a bjork cd etc etc etc. digitally recorded music can have some effects/results that sound amazing on good gear. but here we are talking about an analog recordings, and unless you are simply enamored with that digital thang, i think you will find that the diament mastering/transfer represent what is actually there a lot more closely than the 90's remasters or the mommaboat stuff.

this from a guy who was wowed by the mom stuff until he 1) listened to the classic vinyl again and 2) did the a/b thing with the diament.

ok. now i am done eating my hat. yuck...

still though, if you have zip to compare/relate it to, mothership could rock your boat. i still enjoy it, but not as much as the diament cds.

if you can, compare momship to the 80's diament mastering like i did.try this: turn up a diament cut til plant is pretty loud. all will be well, i promise. now - swap it for mommaship and turn up that same song til plant is as loud as you just heard him on your 80's cd. i promise that your ears will hurt from the loudness/piercing quality of one instrument or another.

I have observed the same problems with remasterd Toto albums (orginal Grammy Award winning stuff damaged through incompetence of remastering engineer and producer) - the orginal 80's first CD release sounds better..

What you describe above is exactly what you hear when it has been mastered "hot" - the modern remastering uses compressors to compress the dynamimcs of the original master tapes so that the CD sounds perceptively louder....but THIS ADDS DISTORTION. Do a google on "CD Loudness wars" it is absolutely criminal how the industry is destroying good music! BTW Led Zeppelin sounds awesome on ATC SCM 100's - anyway that is what Robert Plant uses at home...so I guess it should.

I don't know what the 80's diament is/what ? I assume that is the first Led Zeppelin cd's that came out. The Page re-masters in the 90's is better than those period, imhop. The recorded volume level is not much different imhop but the detail is better and drums, bass (Bonham, Jones) more pronounced as opposed to vocals, guitar being highlighted for radio as things were back then. Early cd's were/are not as good as now if current re-masters are done properly. Come on ! We all know cd technology has become better since the 80's. Sure idiot engineers can record a cd too loud compressing and removing dynamics and rendering the music unlistenable. For an example, I bought the Climax Blues Band compilation, "The Band plays On (FUEL)." This is the worst cd recording I have ever heard. Where I can usually listen to any cd at like 40% to 50% on the volume knob, this one had to be turned way down in order to be able to stand it, and then it still sucked. Extemely loudly recorded, like if you recorded an LP to tape in the old days with the recording level cranked to the max. It just doesn't work. I understand the concept of a TOO HOT recorded cd, there isn't any room left for dynamic changes in the music. I strongly don't believe this is the case in the Page re-masters of the 90's. Consequently, I did have high hopes that high rez recordings of their catalog would be forthcoming. Comments so far seem to be critical of the "Mothership" recording ( I want to buy high rez versions of individual albums). So, I wait for more comments.

Finally got around to listening to the CDs. They are fabulous... but the real shocker is the DVD that is included with the CDs. Early footage of live performances and a few later ones. And the sound, oh my God!